The Lagos State Universal Basic Education Board (LASUBEB) has celebrated its retiring teaching and non-teaching staff for their meritorious service, describing them as pillars of excellence. Speaking at the event, the Chairman of the Board, Dr. Hakeem Shittu, said the event marked the Year 2025 celebration of the ‘Last Day in Office’, and Post Service Champions Programme.

Shittu, represented by Mr. Falana Jamiu, Permanent Board Member, Teachers’ Pension Department, LASUBEB, said the initiative honours educators, who diligently served and advanced the state’s vision for quality, accessible education.

He described the gathering as one of reflection, gratitude and pride, adding that it was dedicated to men and women whose loyalty and dedication had strengthened the state’s education system. “This ceremony represented more than a farewell; it is a statement of value, appreciation, and the government’s unwavering commitment to the welfare and dignity of its workforce.

About 960,000 Nigerian youths are set to undergo technical and vocational skills training under the Federal Ministry of Education’s Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) initiative after verification. It noted the verification process was designed to prevent fraud.

The government said that over 250,000 trainees are currently enrolled in the first cohort, undergoing hands-on training across 2,600 centres nationwide. Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, disclosed this during an inspection visit to selected TVET partner centres which included AFS Vocational Hub in Garki and Golden Finger Farms and Ranches Limited along the Kubwa-Zuba Expressway, Dei-Dei, Abuja yesterday.

Alausa described the programme as a clear demonstration of the power of political will behind government intervention. He said: “From when we started conceiving this TVET initiative eight months ago, to now seeing the first quarter of students being trained, it shows what is possible when there’s commitment. We took our time to curate the way this vocational training would be done.

Nigerian students, particularly those at the premier Yaba College of Technology (YABATECH), are poised for a significant uplift in global academic career prospects following a high-level educational partnership with French institutions.

The collaboration, driven by a deep-rooted historical relationship, promises to make world-class French higher education more accessible and affordable for Nigerian graduates. The ‘Study in France Conference’, hosted by YABATECH and featuring a large delegation of French universities and specialised institutions, signals a robust expansion of academic and cultural ties.

In his welcoming address, the Rector of YABATECH, Dr. Ibraheem Adedotun Abdul, positioned the conference as a significant step in strengthening the educational and cultural bridge with France. He highlighted the institution’s long-standing relationship with the French Government, which began over three decades ago with the donation of advanced equipment that birthed the college’s Department of Industrial Maintenance Engineering.

The World Bank is set to fund yet another multimillion-dollar higher education and skills project in the Eastern and Southern Africa regions. The project, Skills for Economic Transformation and Jobs (SET4Jobs), aims to facilitate regional collaboration and coordination while promoting excellence in skills development, tertiary education and applied research.

The US$20 million, 10-year project, also meant to facilitate incubation for jobs of the future, will seek to harmonise accreditation standards, guidelines and procedures across partner states, and establish a framework to enable mutual recognition of accredited programmes and support the creation of a common higher education area in the Eastern and Southern Africa regions.

It aims to enhance the regions’ competitiveness in delivering quality education and research, and facilitate the development of academic networks, joint research initiatives, and partnerships with industry, with the hope of strengthening the impact of higher education on regional development.

The freeze on foreign aid in the United States has impacted the higher education sector in Africa, including in Cameroon where the government is seeking alternative funding strategies with a shift towards scholarship offers from other countries and donor institutions.

The Cameroon Ministry of Higher Education has said the government had to look at alternatives, asking for increased scholarship openings from Commonwealth scholarship programmes and other partner countries such China, Turkiye, Russia and India to bridge the gap in funding for international studies and to bolster funding shortfalls created by this year’s United States Agency for International Development (USAID) cuts.

“Following cuts in USAID funding, we had to solicit an increase in scholarship opportunities from other friendly countries. We are happy this is yielding fruits and our students are adapting to the changes,” Jacques Fame Ndongo, the minister of higher education, said at a media briefing ahead of the new academic year that started earlier in October.

The African Network for Internationalisation of Education (ANIE) is proposing a continental internationalisation strategy and a fund for African higher education institutions to support their efforts as they set out to build cross-border collaborations.

These were part of a package of resolutions or recommendations accepted at an ANIE conference from 8-10 October in Kampala, Uganda, themed, ‘Internationalisation in Challenging Times: Sustaining Impact, Driving Change; Towards New Futures for Africa’.

In May, experts participating in a webinar of the Association of African Universities called for a coherent and coordinated continental internationalisation plan. The ANIE conference appeared to have moved stakeholders further in this direction.

Massification has a triumphant sound. It suggests inclusion, a democratic widening of gates that were, for too long, kept narrow. Photographs cooperate: oceans of students moving through campus corridors, lecture halls filled to the mezzanine, a visible proof that access has been won.

But the camera is a kind liar. It records bodies, not learning. What we are living through in many African universities is a quieter phenomenon that does not photograph well. I call it the ‘great unlearning’. It unfolds when the expansion of access is not followed by an expansion of capacity, when the timetable is printed on hopes, and when ‘contact hours’ describes contact with the back of another student’s head.

The logistics are visible – overbooked lecture theatres, laboratories using improvised safety protocols, libraries functioning as contested real estate, and WiFi that oscillates between connected and connected-ish.

As a transformative approach to scholarly communication, open access (OA) seeks to remove barriers to accessing, sharing and reusing research outputs. Scholars such as Raffaela Kunz and Monika Plozza believe that this approach not only contributes to the sharing of research, but could potentially advance universal access to information as envisaged by the United Nations Human Rights framework, as well as the Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs).

It can also play a transformative social justice role by closing the digital gaps and dismantling information disparities between those who have the resources and means to purchase and access information and those who do not, according to Paul Ginsparg, founder of the open-access archive arXiv. University of Cape Town academics Laura Czerniewicz and Sarah Goodier refer to the need for OA as an economic and democratic one.

Worldwide, universities and academic libraries are involved in OA advocacy, encouraging researchers to publish their work in OA platforms. These institutions believe that OA enhances the reach and impact of scholarship. Since 2008, advocacy for OA at various institutions has peaked during a selected week in October, an annual event that has come to be known as International Open Access Week.

The European Union has restated its commitment to deepening cultural cooperation with Africa, supporting creative industries, and fostering people-to-people connections through art, music, and education. EU Ambassador to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Gautier Mignot, said this during the Afrobeat Rebellion Exhibition hosted at the Ecobank Pan African Centre in Lagos to commemorate the birthday of Afrobeat legend Fela Anikulapo Kuti.

Members of Team Europe, led by Mignot, joined the Afrobeat Rebellion Exhibition in Lagos, alongside several European ambassadors and senior diplomats representing Poland, Finland, Belgium, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Portugal.

Supported by the French Embassy, the exhibition continues its inspiring journey from Paris as a bridge of rhythm, art, and memory connecting continents. The exhibition celebrates the power of music and visual art to inspire change, amplify identity, and build dialogue across generations and borders.

The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ilorin, Professor Wahab Olasupo Egbewole, SAN, has said Nigeria must urgently reposition its universities as centers of innovation and research to drive economic and technological growth.

Speaking at a press briefing to mark the university’s 40th Convocation and 50th Anniversary, Egbewole said Unilorin’s mission goes beyond teaching. “Universities must become problem-solvers and innovation centers contributing directly to national development,” he said.

Egbewole acknowledged funding constraints, noting that while Unilorin’s 2025 budget requirement was ₦31 billion, it received just ₦2 billion from TETFund. He, however, praised the intervention fund’s ₦2.56 billion allocation for infrastructure, ICT, and entrepreneurship programs.

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has given the Federal Government a four-week ultimatum to conclude all ongoing negotiations in the tertiary education sector. Mr Joe Ajaero, NLC President, gave the ultimatum at an emergency news conference on Monday in Abuja after an extensive meeting with unions in the tertiary institutions.

He said the decision followed years of unfulfilled agreements and underfunding of the education sector, which had contributed to recurring strikes and instability in universities, polytechnics and colleges of education.

“We have decided to give the federal government four weeks to conclude all ongoing negotiations in the sector,” Ajaero said. The president said that failure to meet the deadline would compel the NLC to mobilise all workers and unions across the country for a nationwide action.

Ghana has been selected to host the 2025 Triennale on Education and Training of the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA). The event is one of Africa’s most influential forums for policy dialogue, attracting leaders and stakeholders to share best practices, innovations and evidence-based strategies for improving education across the continent.

The conference, which is scheduled to take place from October 29 to 30, is expected to bring together over 350 participants, including more than 30 African ministers of education and high-level representatives from international development partners such as the World Bank, the African Development Bank, UNESCO, the Gates Foundation, the Mastercard

Foundation and the Global Partnership for Education (GPE). Also expected to attend are senior policymakers, education experts, researchers and academics, who will share knowledge and evidence on groundbreaking innovations to transform education systems across Africa.